The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of: Duane Below
By Aaron Somers
Many popular opinions of pitching prospects are formed from general scouting reports. While these reports are invaluable resources, they can’t always be trusted. Hundreds of minor league hurlers are credited with “mid-90′s velocity,” but very few MLB starters actually have that grade of heat, for example. It’s incredibly frustrating to hear about a pitcher with “a mid-90′s heater and plus curve,” only to have him come up to the big leagues and show a fastball that averages 90.5 mph and a slider.
When a pitcher come up to the majors, we can finally get a foolproof reading on what exactly his arsenal is comprised of, thanks to the great Pitch F/X system. In this series, I analyze just that–the “stuff” of recently-promoted MLB pitchers. Now that they’ve achieved their big league dreams and thus factor directly into the MLB picture, it’s high time that we know exactly what these guys are providing.
This time, I’m taking a look at Tigers swingman Duane Below.
While Duane Below didn’t put up exceptional numbers in the minor leagues save for a big 2007 in Low-A, he still managed to make it up to Detroit this past season as a 25-year-old. Bel0w did put up a 3.13 ERA in Triple-A during the season as well, but his peripherals were suspect. In the majors, he made twelve relief appearances and two starts, throwing 29 innings with 14 strikeouts, 11 walks, and two homers allowed, for a 4.34 ERA and 4.20 FIP.
Below touched 93 mph in relief, but mainly worked in the 88-91 mph range as a starting pitcher. His fastball is fairly straight, and it didn’t prove particularly effective in the big leagues. It only drew whiffs 2.9% of the time, but it did go for a called strike 29.6% of the time and go for a strike 67.3% of the time overall.
Here’s a look at his fastball locations:
He seems to scatter the zone to both righties and lefties, working both sides of the plate. He tends to work a bit high, especially to righties, and since the fastball doesn’t have much movement, so one would expect his groundball rate to be fairly low. However, he’s actually generated a surprising number of worm-burners (51%). It’s a small sample, of course, but it’s key to Below’s prospects for success–after all, he’s not going to get a ton of strikeouts, so he can’t afford to be allowing lots of homers.
So, was his groundball ability merely a product of the small sample, or were Below’s other pitches facilitating the grounders? After all, Below only throws his fastball a bit over half the time.
The lefthander’s second pitch is a hard curveball in the 76-80 mph range. Like his fastball, the curveball didn’t get many swings and misses (4.6% whiff rate), but he threw a ton of strikes with it (69.2%). He did put it down in the zone more frequently than the fastball, but also hung a fair amount of the pitches:
Below does throw on a steep downhill plane due to his high overhand delivery. His delivery has some interesting dynamics in it that provide some deception. Check it out here: Below has some hesitation as he moves forward toward the plate, and he seems to vary the timing on it–it’s fairly pronounced on the pitch he throws at 0:41 in that video, for example. Undoubtedly, that makes his pitches jump on hitters a little bit, and could help him sneak that fastball in for all those called strikes.
He also throws a rather ineffective changeup that has decent run but lacks sink and is often thrown too hard. He only got strikes on 16 of the 41 he threw, so he didn’t try to put it in the zone very often. If he stays in relief long-term, he can probably stick with the fastball/curveball and eschew the changeup, but it could be problematic in a rotation. However, he does possess an 85-89 mph cutter that was effective in a very small sample–he could stand to use the pitch more, but like his other pitches, it’s not going to get whiffs.
Below, then, doesn’t have any real way to strike batters out. He’ll have to keep the ball down and avoid walks to be any sort of a useful major league pitcher, whatever his role. As a rookie, he did enough in those regards to be above replacement level, but he needs to work the bottom of the zone more to avoid home runs, and he could also stand to walk fewer batters than the 3.41 per nine innings in his debut.
Overall, Below is a useful guy to have around in Triple-A to fill a hole, but he’ll need to take a step forward to establish himself as more than a very expendable extra arm.
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